Monday, September 21, 2015

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Roheena Saxena points out that personal privilege tends to correlate to selfishness in distributing scarce resources. And that in turn may explain in part why extreme top-end wealth isn't even mentioned in a new inequality target under development by the UN.

- Or, for that matter, the Calgary Board of Education's continued provision of free lunches to executives while students lack food and supplies. Meanwhile, Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the spread of hunger in Toronto's suburbs, while Karena Walter points out the need for more action on poverty in Canada's federal election.

- Michael Harris notes that Stephen Harper's definition of "old stock Canadians" (along with his belief in the significance of such status) represents yet another effort to cut First Nations out of Canada's history.

- Ralph Surette offers a reminder that voters need to make sure they haven't potentially been disenfranchised by the Cons' voter suppression tactics. And the CP reports that Elections Canada is expecting even more cheating in the election to come - which can't be a surprise given the Cons' consistent law-breaking in every election they've won.

- Tom Parkin highlights why the NDP is the credible progressive choice for Canadian voters, while Scott Piatkowski duly questions the Libs' claim to be running from the left of the NDP:

It's about who will deliver quality affordable child care and pharmacare
to Canadians. The NDP will. The Liberals won't (they used to at least
pretend that they were in favour of both; now they denounce both as
unaffordable).

None of these ambitious commitments are the sign of a New Democratic
Party that is moving to the centre. In fact, quite the opposite. There's
absolutely no evidence that the NDP is running to the right of the
Liberals (or even in the same lane).

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg wonders whether there are too many attacks on both sides of the NDP/Lib divide - raising a point which I'll expand on in future posts.